This is not your standard chart based on app numbers per categories. This chart is based on data from 342.000 Apps isntalled on over 100.000 Devices recorded from April-October 2014. This gives a better overview on what on how popular a category is with smartphone users - not just how popular it is with developers. If you go by lists from Appbrain or App Annie you might think that Business, Photography and Social are hot categories ... but they are not or even worse, they have plenty of downloads, but only from a few apps. Trying to push an app in these categories might be very difficult. I did not lump Games into one value here to give the full picture - but all game categories combined is about 50% larger then Tools, the single most popular app category.
And here is the list:

The newest Photoshop CC 2014 update brings a new tool for Android and iOS Developers to extract the assets you need in the various screen resolutions. Since Adobe is always leaning towards iOS/Apple than Android the preset settings are geared toward iOS. Here is the quick 6 step workflow to make it work for Android.

Create your Assets for the highest resolution (xxhdpi right now) and rename all the layers to the filenames you want to give. Make sure that all you layers are vector based or converted to smart-objects

Android Webviews are a great way to display content from a website. So most websites that have a companion app use webviews to show the comment.
And most of the time everything will work just fine - but if you use advanced table layouts you might encounter a problems.

The culprit is .setLayoutAlgorithm(LayoutAlgorithm.SINGLE_COLUMN);

Normal tables don't seem to be affected by this setting, but complex tables using scope="row" or scope="col" or both. To fix this just replace the LayoutAlgorithm to normal.

I'm experimenting with Google App Engine PHP Beta to host Wordpress installs. As expected there are some hickups but they are trying hard to make it as easy as possible. With some great plugins etc.
The next step for me is obviously to try to make a MultiSite install - and I succeeded. The main challenge is that you need a separate configuration for the local install and the remote one. Here are the steps for a succesful Wordpress Multi-Site install.

Note: This article is in flux and I will update it as soon as I find out more - so come back of follow me on Twitter @derFrankie or Google+ to get updated.

Prerequisites: Having a working wordpress install locally and on GAE following instructions https://developers.google.com/appengine/articles/wordpress

Basic setup

1. Enable Network Support

Edit wp-config.php and include

define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);

above /* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

2. Deploy your install to GAE 3. Create a local network

Login to your local Wordpress Dashboard and disable all plugins.

Then go to /Tools/Network and create a Network

It will tell you that you can only use folders and that you need to copy some information

Create the .htaccess file and forget about the rest (I give you the tight config later on)

Go to the next step

4. Create a network on GAE

* Login to your Wordpress Dashboard on Google App Engine and disable all plugins
* Then go to /Tools/Network and create a Network
* Choose Folders as install method
* Go to the next step

5. Edit Configuration to work locally and on GAE
Open your local wp-config.php and enter the following lines above /* That's all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */

Google thinks that Google+ will be the new way to follow updates from websites ... which it isn't since there is no easy way to push your content to a Google+ Page.
Anyway - if a user has installed the Google+ Notification Chrome extension he will have the posibility to add the Google+ Page of a linked website directly while visiting. It's sounds complicated but should actually make it easier for users.

I enabled it but couldn't yet see any difference ... but maybe this will solve some of the "subscription issues" that many blogs have since the demise of RSS.

Twitter is closing down it's API. After cutting links with LinkedIn now they cut the cord on Instagram. This will happen more often. It's a shame, because Twitter was on it's way to became the identity service for the internet.
Deep integrations from Apple and numerous online services brought Twitter to the attention of the millions, but know it looks like that they want to become just another content service. Ask Yahoo and Myspace how well that went.

I can see how the ambitions can drive you to become more than just the infrastructure - but there lies also the trap.

It's no secret that the value of any social network (yes you can argue that Twitter is not a social network) lies in the users and their content, and if the social network itself tries to become the content player, then it starts to be confusing.

I think that Twitter will go down the path of Yahoo/Aol/[insert media conglomerate without vision here] if they continue this route, not just strategy wise, but also business wise.

Many App Developers use Google Analytics to measure user interaction on their mobile Apps. That's nice and there will be new features coming for this purpose, but the biggest news is that you can mease "Google Play traffic sources". That is something you cannot do in the Appstore and will give a huge advantage to developers on the Android Platform using this service.
To know where your customers/users are coming from will help to market the apps better, especially in the crowded app stores.

Go ahead an read all the new features over at the Google Analytics Blog.

Beyond showing off some of my work I always tried to share insights and my perspective on new developments in the design and web technology space. Not only to empower designers to communicate better with developers, but also for developers and businesses to help them understand the creative process.
With the newly redesigned website I go one step further by adding 2 new categories where I will post specific content aimed at businesses and developers. Main goal for businesses is to help them understand where the web is going and what technologies and trends they should pay attention to. For Developers the main topics will revolve around new tools that will help them deliver the crazy ideas designers come up with.

About Frank Neulichedl

Hi, I'm Frank Neulichedl. Digital Product Designer, Photographer and Chef. I love to create awesome products with great UX, beautiful UI and modern interactions. Follow me on Twitter, see my pictures on Instagram and don't miss out on the free Brand Personality Questionnaire.